Clinton Bets On Reno

Umpretentious Politician Who Wins Over Critics

March 08, 1993|by MICHAEL TACKETT Chicago Tribune

MIAMI — Janet Reno has a real log-cabin story. It begins about 1947, when Harry S. Truman was president and Miami wasn't the land of a thousand conspiracies. Her mother, Jane, guided by government pamphlets, laid log upon log to help build their three-bedroom home.

It has been modified only slightly since then. A broad screened porch serves as the living room. Jane Reno insisted air conditioning not be installed. She liked it hot.

It was nearly 20 miles from downtown on 20 acres of palmetto scrubland. Henry and Jane Wood Reno wanted to be in the country, where they could have horses and cows.

They sold off much of the property to pay for their children's educations. They kept the square patch that surrounds the house, an oddity today behind a funeral home, next to condominiums and near cookie-cutter strip shopping malls.

You cannot see it from the road. You must turn at the mail box and drive 20 yards down a dirt path. Thick brush and trees remain bowed from Hurricane Andrew six months ago. Janet Reno and her mother rode out the storm in the house.

This is where Reno has lived for more than 40 of her 54 years and what she will leave if the U.S. Senate confirms her as the nation's next attorney general.

``That house is symbolic of who Janet Reno is,'' said Richard Gregory, one of Reno's top assistants as Dade County state attorney. ``This is the way she is: unpretentious. Private. Simple. And she lives her life the way she feels comfortable.''

For 15 years, Reno has been the top prosecutor in a county that is a mosaic of criminal intrigue. It's a choke point in the international drug war, for immigration problems, for criminal conspiracies and public corruption.

Few have been in a better position to see the challenges facing the nation on justice issues than Reno.

She has lost often. She has been criticized for her handling of controversial cases and in some instances for not handling them. The trial conviction rate of her office is modest, but there are enough complexities in the Dade County justice system to make numbers a dubious measure.

At the same time, she has established programs for victims, witnesses, children and families seeking support payments. She also endorsed a widely studied drug court here, which emphasizes treatment over jail time.

She has shown a consistent ability to make converts of her detractors. And, perhaps the best measure of all, she continues to win re-election and most recently ran unopposed, no small accomplishment for an unapologetic liberal Democrat in an increasingly conservative county.

``She is the Teflon prosecutor,'' defense lawyer Edward Shohat said. ``If there are any clues to her skills, look at the election results. She came through every time.''

When her office failed to win a conviction of Miami police officers in the beating death of a black insurance agent, Arthur McDuffie, in 1980, Miami exploded with racial violence. Reno quickly went into the black community to allay doubts. She told citizens: ``You have a perfect opportunity to get rid of me. I am up for election in the fall.'' Community leaders who had called for her resignation now strongly endorse her.

Les Brown, a community organizer back in 1980, said he believed Reno's office had wrongly investigated him for nearly a year in connection with a city contract. He stood at her office at the Richard Gerstein Justice Building each day to protest. Now a highly successful motivational speaker, Brown said of Reno: ``I've watched her for a long time. She is a person with a strong sense of integrity and government service. She is firm and she is relentless. And I have absolutely no reason to say anything good about her.''

Martin Dardis, who was chief investigator under Reno's predecessor, Richard Gerstein, and under Reno for two years, once publicly called her a ``moron'' over her handling of a drug case. But he said that he never questioned her character and that he believes ``she has the potential to be one of the greatest attorneys general ever.''

Her one persistent critic, John B. Thompson, a lawyer and a leader of a self-described pro-family group, questioned Reno's sexual orientation and accused her of being soft on pornographers when he tried to unseat her in the 1988 election. Dade County voters re-elected Reno by a 2-to-1 ratio.

Reno has said, ``I'm just an old maid with a great attraction to men.''

Friends describe her as extremely family oriented, devoting time and attention to her sister and two brothers, their children and cousins, all of whom stay at the family home at one time or another. She is a member of AARP, the NAACP, the Greater Miami Opera, the Tropical Audubon Society and the National Council of Jewish Women.

Sara Smith, a lawyer and a friend of Reno's for nearly 30 years, said she thought so much of her that she listed Reno as her children's guardian in her will, even when Smith's parents were living.